Canzine 2009

Canada's Largest Zine Fair and Festival of Alternative Culture

Sunday, November 1, 2009
1pm - 7pm
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St. West (Queen just East of Dufferin)
Toronto

Feel the Burn! This Year's Theme: Olympics!

$5 admission comes with a free copy of the Fall issue of Broken Pencil Magazine - issue 45 - "Olympics"

Giant Zine Fair!

All Day
Over 150 zines from across Canada on display and for sale!

The heart of the event, indie publishers both in print and online come from across the country and the continent to show their wares! Be amazed at the creativity, ingenuity, and sheer weirdness!

The One-Two Punch Book Pitch

2:00-3:00pm
Live on our mainstage in front of a crowing crowd, you get two minutes to pitch your book to our panel of judges. They get one minute each to tell you why you'll never get published in a million billion years (or why they want to see your manuscript asap!). With host/judge writer/BP fiction editor Hal Niedzviecki, plus judges literary agent Sam Hiyate (co-founder of the Rights Factory) and Coach House Books editor Alana Wilcox. Participants must register in advance. To sign up email editor@brokenpencil.com and tell us in one paragraph or less what you want to pitch at the 1-2 Punch.

The winner gets a Broken Pencil underground lit prize pack including all of our previous literary-themed issues, the new Can'tLit BP fiction anthology, and signed copies of books by BP editors Hal Niedzviecki and Nathaniel G. Moore.

Literary agent Sam Hiyate is President and lead agent at the Toronto based Rights Factory Agency. He is also the founder and former editor/publisher of the litmag Blood+Aphorisms and the outlaw literary publishing firm Gutter Press.

Alana Wilcox is an editor Toronto's famous Coach House Books. She is also the author of the novel A Grammar of Endings.

The Canzine Olympics!

3:00-4:00pm - Indie culture mavens will battle for the gold medal in underground creativity!

Featuring: The Zine Lift, Speed Zining, Word Relay Race, and Competitive Speaking.

Do you want to compete? If you're a fun-loving indie creator in any genre, you're eligible. Email editor@brokenpencil.com and tell us who you are and why you want to be in the Canzine Olymics. You could win $100 cash plus a profile in Broken Pencil!*

*Prizes for Gold, Silver and Bronze! The Gold Medal winner will be featured in the winter issue of Broken Pencil Magazine, plus they'll take away $100 cash and a BP Prize pack. Silver gets a Prize Pack (the new BP anthology Can't Lit, plus The Program, a novel, by Hal Niedzviecki and the BP t-shirt) plus 2 year subscription to BP. Bronze gets the Prize pack!

Workshop: Screen Printing for Beginners

4:00-5:00pm
Learn how to screen print your own t-shirts, posters, zine and book covers and more! A hands-on workshop led by Michael Morton, mastermind behind the screen-printing business Crime League.

Can'tLit: Readings from the New Anthology of Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine

5:00-6:00pm
That's right, it's finally here: the long awaited anthology featuring the best fiction from the last 12 years of Broken Pencil Magazine. This event will feature writers who contributed to the anthology introduced by the editor of the anthology, associate fiction editor Richard Rosenbaum.

Joey Comeau has a degree in linguistics. He's the author of "It's Too Late to Say I'm Sorry" and "Lockpick Pornography," both from Loose Teeth Press, and, with Emily Horne, the creator of the webcomic "A Softer World" (www.asofterworld.com). His latest book is "Overqualified," published by ECW Press.

Greg Kearney is the author of the short story collections Mommy Daddy Baby and Pretty; the latter collection has been rejected by virtually every publishing house that has ever been. He’s finishing up a novel, Violet of Black Lake.

Jessica Faulds lived and drank in Edmonton, Alberta; then she moved to Toronto. She also plays in the band Blind Tiger, Tiger.

Zoe Whittall’s first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, was named a Best Book of 2007 by the Globe & Mail and Quill & Quire. Her poetry books include The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan, 2001), The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare Books, 2006) and Precordial Thump (Exile Editions, 2008). Her latest book is "Holding Still For As Long As Possible" (House of Anansi Press).

Hotel Room Installations

1:00-7:00pm
Canada's brightest and weirdest will be creating one day unique environments to explore in five of the Gladstone Hotel's Rooms. Featuring:

ARTCADE 2009: Toronto indie videogame showcase.
The members of the Hand Eye Society (www.handeyesociety.com) will be showcasing various manifestations of DIY videogame culture, with hands-on stations to draw your own videogame character and to try "circuit-bending" a game. They will also be unveiling the retrofitted arcade cabinet filled full of local indie games proposed at the last Canzine.

The Toronto Comic Jam Room: All day long sequential art.
On the last Tuesday of every month the Toronto Comic Jam meets at the Cameron House to collaboratively create comics. But on November 1st it will be coming out of the back room and setting up shop in one of Canzine's art rooms where it will invite passers-by to stop in and draw a panel or two. Past Toronto Comic Jam books will be for sale.

The City of Craft General Store: Cool indie crafts.
This year, City of Craft is teaming up with the good folks at Broken Pencil Magazine to bring a brand new 'art room' to their annual celebration of indie culture, Hotel Canzine. Our room, The City of Craft General Store, will be a one-day jam-packed old-timey shop to delight all your crafty senses. Featuring selected works from Bespoke Uprising Tara Bursey Damned Dollies Shannon Gerard Lee Meszaros The Misanthrope Specialty Co. Nightjar Books Repeat Studio The Sweetie Pie Press the workroom & More!

The Lost Window: Toronto Mannequin Window Displays 1930-1950: A provocative found-photo exhibit.
Found discarded in front of a downtown Toronto apartment complex in 2002, a rare and astonishing collection of 1930-1950's mannequin catalogue photos and window displays. Children, teen and adult mannequins standing in awkward silence and synthetic poses. This installation and accompanying publication examines the intersections between the public and the private, the creative and the commercial. As the work of Henry Darger and Morton Bartlett illustrates, things never meant for public viewing can magically transcend their concealed origins.

Spelunkin' fer Culkin: Three dimensional zine installation by Wowee Zonk.
The Dark Wizard Mulkin Kelarkin has captured Kevin and is keeping him hostage in the Gladstone Hotel! Mulkin's Black Magik is powerful, and to make sure no one meddles with his plans he has opened a trans-dimensional rift from the Gladstone to the depths of his cavernous lair. Mulkin's lair is filled with mysterious lights, sounds, cave formations and magik. Help to rescue Kevin and explore Mulkin's cave in Spelunkin' fer Culkin!

Download the Canzine 2009 Poster

Hotel Canzine is made possible by grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Hotel Canzine also is supported by the following most excellent sponsors: Open Book, Mint Records, Insomniac Books, Magazines Canada, Movieola, Book Ninja, CKLN 89.5, CIUT 88.1, Now Magazine and the Gladstone Hotel.

Canzine is an annual event organized by Broken Pencil, the Magazine of Zine Culture and the Independent Arts. Broken Pencil, PO Box 203, Station P, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S7, email: editor@brokenpencil.com, phone 416 204 1700